Mink Proofing - Can It Be Done?

[chickengeorgeto]

... One of my neighbors... said he gave up keeping birds because he was tired of losing them (they even got his large ducks.) So, now I face the thought of never being able to have them again....

When discussing varmint proofing a chicken coop, house, pen, or run, you need to use an "integrated" form of pest management. Integrated pest management is taught at all the top Agricultural Universities.

Integrated pest management dose nothing until a farmer's losses reach a predetermined level of economic loss. The next step is building a better chicken pen or coop and when the losses are severe enough Integrated pest management requires you to kill without compunction, compassion, or remorse every living organism that is responsible for your loses.

No one has a herd of mink, they are incredibly unsocial animals who naturally fight and kill one another. With some hard work and an investment in building materials you can reduce your mink losses to one or two raids a year, maybe less. If that number of Mink kills is too high for you then a serious varmint dog is in order along with a few mink traps to thin the mink population to slightly below the natural carrying capacity of the land.

Google building a mink box.
A somewhat similar contraption also does a swell job catching weasels, or the minks' little brother.

 

[Ruralhideaway]

I second the dog suggestion. The smell of your predator definitely won't make the wild things more comfortable for starters.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Do you thin the #110 is too small?... 140 years of family chicken keeping here and never a mink until Walmart built a store on a creek 1/4 mile from my house as the crow flies and cut down 80 acres of forest along the creek. The next week, the slaughter started.

The 110 & 120 traps are identical in size. 4.5 inches X 4.5 inches.

The difference is that the 110 trap has only one spring powering it while the 120 Conibear is powered by two springs. For casual varmint killing I recommend the 120 in case you catch something a little more powerful than a mink. They also come in models 220, 160, 180, & 330.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

The only way to have two or more roosters at one time is to keep enough hens and own enough land that every rooster running on your place has a sufficiency of hens and enough territory for his hens to range on without the two roosters coming into conflict. Of Course that means if all of your roosters are more or less equal in the manhood department. A macho or he-man rooster paired with a shrinking violet rooster just means that for better or for worse your top gun rooster will dominate all of the hens, and the shrinking violet rooster will dominate none of you hens, at least within sight of his lord and master.

 

[Ruralhideaway]

I think every situation gets different results. I only had trios. The hens only rarely had feather loss and fighting was minimal. But i had geese and a peacock then who could have been affecting the dynamics.

 

[canalcolt]

You can totally build a coop that keeps predator's out. I have a dirt floor coop. Did a concrete footing + cinder block walls. Wood structure on top of that. I have put a hardware cloth run around 3 sides and buried the wire about a foot. Lots of predators visit the coop but none have gotten in. I see all the foot prints. View attachment 1264784

That's an amazing, beautiful coop!

 

[Mosey2003]

I think every situation gets different results. I only had trios. The hens only rarely had feather loss and fighting was minimal. But i had geese and a peacock then who could have been affecting the dynamics.

And then there was my gorgeous, docile English Buff Orpington that wore the backs off a dozen hens in a few weeks... It's a variable thing, Lol. I sold him to someone with 30 hens, hope he was satisfied! Haha

 

[Latestarter]

I had five breeds and a breed specific roo with each. I had to put chicken saddles on them and even that didn't work as advertised. If you have multiple roos, you really need multiple feeding spots so that the dominant roo doesn't starve the submissive one. I had that happen.

 

[Shadyfarms]

That's an amazing, beautiful coop!

Thanks! It was the first building project of my life! Learned lots of things. Most of it was scavenged material from the previous owner. Old windows, old siding, old shingles, old cinder blocks.

 

[itsasmallfarm]

The 110 & 120 traps are identical in size. 4.5 inches X 4.5 inches.

The difference is that the 110 trap has only one spring powering it while the 120 Conibear is powered by two springs. For casual varmint killing I recommend the 120 in case you catch something a little more powerful than a mink. They also come in models 220, 160, 180, & 330.

180? never heard of a 180 conibear.